Of Love and Pain
by Extraho Incendia
Summary: Years after Anders destroyed the Chantry he is still liberating Mages from oppression.The war is raging and desperation is forcing drastic measures.Short possible two-shot.Angst.Character death.It appears I uploaded a draft and not final copy.Now fixed.
1. Love

A/N: This song plays as the outro after the endgame. I just finished my fourth playthrough and it had been stuck in my head. This is what came to me as I listened to it for the umpteenth time.

As always I do not own Dragon Age or any of it's affiliated paraphernalia. I just like to play around in Thedas whenever I can. Enjoy!

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I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me  
>I'm not calling you a thief, just don't steal from me<br>I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me  
>And I love you so much, I'm gonna let you kill me<br>XXX  
>There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep<br>Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks  
>Then it walks, then it walks with my legs<br>To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet  
>XXX<br>There but for the grace of God go I  
>And when you kiss me, I am happy enough to die<p>

XXX

"I'm not Calling You a Liar"- _Florence and the Machine_

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"Stop."

And I do. That voice pins my feet to the ground as surely as the arrow I know is aimed at my back would. My heart hammers against the cage of my ribs. It's been so long. So long since I've heard it. Save for in my dreams.

"Turn around Anders. I won't be forced to shoot you in the back."

And I do. I brush at the front of my dusty cloak. Run a hand trough the tangle of my hair. I wonder what she'll think of the grey that peppers my temples. Or the scar that puckers the flesh from my ear across my cheek to wrap around my throat. "I'd hoped it would be you. It should be."

The look on her face is not what I'd expected. Determined, yes, grim even. But not this anguish. It darkens the dove grey of her eyes til it matches the smoke that billows up from the remains of the Chantry prison just beyond the treeline behind her. One more act of destruction to assure my place in the void.

"I can't let you go." She says setting her stance. Pulling taut her bowstring. "Not this time."

"I know." I take a breath. Drag it deep into my lungs. Feel the tug of old wounds as my ribcage expands. I'm tired. And the music is getting louder. The pull of the deep roads will be too much to resist soon.

"Why couldn't you have just faded away? Let someone else continue this madness?" A single silvered tear traces it's way to her jaw taking soot with it and teasing me with a glimpse of porcelain skin. I can still remember the way it felt beneath my fingers. The need to pull her into my arms and ease her pain is visceral. I almost take that step but check myself. We are too far gone for that now.

"They want you for the brand. More than anyone has ever wanted anything."

"I wouldn't say that love." I smile and find that I mean it.

The clouds above shift allowing the sun to slice through the canopy of leaves above us. It glints off the point of her arrow, paints gold in her cinnamon colored hair and is swallowed by the inky blackness of her armor even as it sets the eye picked out in silver upon her chest ablaze.

"Did you hear me Anders? We are to bring you in alive. So they may brand you and parade you about Thedas as an example of the Orders' power." Frustration sets her jaw. Stiffens her spine. "And there's nothing I can do about it. They—" Her voice breaks. A second tear joins the first winding it's own way through the ash that covers her face. "They have my Beth."

"Of course they do." I laugh and it scrapes my throat raw. "And they say we are the evil ones."

Bastards. They found a soft spot and dug in deep. It shouldn't surprise me that they'd turn on one of their own. Not when it could get them a prize such as me.

I wish, as I have so many times before, that things could have been different. Or maybe I could have been different but I made my choices. Each one taking me a step further away from her. Maker what a mess.

I pull the staff from my back and lay in on the ground at my feet. "So what now love?"

She shifts foot to foot. A nervous habit she's had for as long as I've known her. "We are to bring you in alive. But, dead is…..acceptable." She looks pointedly down at the staff. "If you fight."

My stomach clenches. She is offering me the only way out that she can. But can I take it?

"Make it fire." She whispers.

I go cold from head to toe. "Hawke I—"

The baying of mabari cuts through the air.

"They're close."

The shouts grow louder. The clank of armor joins the call of the dogs.

"Anders. _Please_."

The crash of steel striking thick foliage bursts through from all sides.

"Do it now!"

I scoop my staff up bringing it out before me not unlike I did the day we met in my clinic in Darktown. It feels like a thousand years have passed since that day.

Closer. Louder. And I can see them.

I call fire into my empty hand staring into her eyes as the old fear fills them. Her breath becomes erratic causing the vein in her neck to throb. She flexes the fingers that hold her bow whiteknuckled tight.

She begins to moan low in her throat. Tries in vain to suppress the shudder that racks her body.

"I love you. I always have." I pull my arm back and close my eyes. My hand cools instantly as the fire leaves it. I hear the shouts of the Seekers as they barrel through the trees and above them the soft twang of her bowstring as it sends mercy to my undeserving heart.


	2. And Pain

A/N: There will be one more chapter to this. I know I have already used this song in another of my Anders/F!Hawke fics but it appealed to me while I was writing this too so I'm using it again. And again I do not own Dragon Age or anything thereof. Not for profit just for fun. Enjoy!

I have burned my tomorrow  
>And I stand inside today<br>At the edge of the future  
>And my dreams all fade away<p>

And burn my shadow away  
>And burn my shadow away<p>

Fate's my destroyer  
>I was ambushed by a lie<br>And you judged me once for falling  
>This wounded heart arrives<p>

And burn my shadow away  
>And burn my shadow away<p>

And burn my shadow away  
>Oh how I loved you<p>

"_Burn my Shadow"_—**Unkle**

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"You have news for me Seeker?" She rises as I enter the room. Unusual for her and so very telling.

"Yes, your Grace." I stand straight hands clasped behind my back eyes forward the filth of the road still clinging to me. I am weary to my very core.

"The rebel took our bait did he?" She smirks. She thinks she's so clever. I want to wrap my fingers around her throat.

"Yes, your Grace." I knew he would as much as I'd hoped he wouldn't. I am an irresistible carrot.

Excitement burns in her eyes dark and fevered. "Where is he?"

There is a short sharp pain in my chest as my heart skips several beats.

"_**I can't let you go. Not this time."**_

"_**I know." **_

_**Do you know what it's doing to me?**_

"Dead. Your Grace." Like my honor. Like another piece of my soul.

"Dead?" Her tone takes an edge to rival any steel. Her body stiffens. The air vibrates.

"Yes, your Grace."

"Dead!" She slams her hands against the top of her desk with a crack like thunder.

I do not flinch. To do so now would mean a death sentence. Not just for me but for my Beth. "Yes, your Grace."

She inhales sharply and I can feel the atmosphere in the room change. I watch her from my peripheral. A brief but very intense battle flashes across her features. Then she is once again a paragon of calm control. "He was to be brought before me alive."

"Yes, your Grace. Unless he were to fight, your Grace. In which case we were given leave to defend ourselves however necessary." My stomach begins to churn. I am walking a very fine line here.

"Ah yes, of course." She begins pacing back and forth slow deliberate steps that take her from one end of her enormous desk to the other. "And so he attacked you?"

"Yes, your Grace. In the woods beyond the prison. I had tracked him there." I curl my toes into a fist and will myself not to flinch as I am bombarded with images.

_**He looks so much older. Worn. Ragged around the edges. And it's been so long. The look in his eyes as he places his life in my hands is almost too much for me to bear. Sweet blessed Andraste why?**_

"You were alone Seeker?" She stops pacing and places her hands on the desktop.

"Yes, your Grace." I keep my gaze forward. My breathing even.

"Is it a common practice for you to confront dangerous individuals without benefit of a second?" She looks up at me one eyebrow raised. I stare at the soft blue vein that bisects her forehead.

"No, your Grace. But I saw an opportunity and didn't want to lose it. I have been, as I'm sure you know, very ….. _motivated_ of late and I felt the reward outweighed the risk." She tilts her head to the side and the corner of her mouth tilts up the smallest fraction. It's bonechilling. I've put my foot right on the line with that comment and she wants me to know it but, Makers breath I am tired of playing puppet.

"Where is the body?" She speaks low and even never taking her eyes from my face.

"Below, your Grace. In the dungeon where it's cold." In the makerforsaken _dungeon_. Back to where it all began. I am so ashamed. I feel…. I bite the inside of my cheek. The pain is instant and clarifying and serves to help me keep what little control I have left.

"Fitting." She straightens closing her eyes. The silence in the room is broken only by the sound of her breathing. Her nostrils flare with each deep exhalation.

"Do you have any idea what you have done?" She sits. Tents her fingers beneath her chin.

"I have done what was asked of me your Grace."

"Oh child you have done so much more. He will become a martyr to those fools." She rubs the center of her forehead with two fingers.

"Forgive me your Grace. I thought only of completing my mission. It was foolish of me to follow him alone." My left knee loosens the toll of the last few days finally catching up as the last of the adrenaline fades.

She barks out a laugh. "Very foolish indeed. I had hoped with your…_intimate _knowledge of the man that you might be able to persuade him into accepting our merciful justice. Instead you bring me a corpse. It seems I had misjudged the situation."

She studies me openly. Watching me for some sign that I am anything less than a completely loyal servant. I focus on the air flowing in and out of my lungs. The smell of embrium that permeates her quarters. The way the sun slants through the large widows behind her. Anything but the pain that threatens to rip me apart.

"I am ...disappointed. However, I'm sure I will find a way to turn even this to our advantage. You are dismissed."

That hurts. More than the hell that has been my life since I came to the chantry seeking a way to protect my sister. I am dismissed. I murdered the only man I have ever loved and the enormity of that is swallowed by the fact that this woman has to make do with _only _his corpse. Oh dear merciful Maker give me strength to stay my blades.

"Go home Serah Hawke. Your sister awaits you there." She waves me off.

"Thank you, your Grace." I force my body to bend into a show of respect even though I have already ceased to exist for her and retreat while I still have control of my hands.

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A/NII: Any constructive criticism is welcome. Inbox it please as I am always trying to improve. I use fanfiction to practice my writing skills for original works. Thanks!


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